“Poorly prepared for the dignity of life, I barely keep up with the pace of the action imposed. Reality demands.”

Generally speaking, life is so rich and full of variety; you have to remember all the time that there is a comical side to everything.

I cannot imagine any writer who would not fight for his peace and quiet.

I’m working on the world, revised, improved edition, featuring fun for fools blues for brooders, combs for bald pates, tricks for old dogs.

There’s simply too much fuss about myself.

Animals don’t even try to look any different from what nature intended. They humbly wear their shells, scales, spines, plumes, pelts, and down. The conscious impulse to change one’s appearance is found only among humans.

Such certainty is beautiful, but uncertainty is more beautiful still.

Even the worst book can give us something to think about.

Loveless work, boring work, work valued only because others haven’t got even that much, however loveless and boring – this is one of the harshest human miseries.

And whatever I do will become forever what I’ve done.

Is a decision made in advance really any kind of choice?

Something doesn’t start at its usual time. Something doesn’t happen as it should. Someone was always, always here, then suddenly disappeared and stubbornly stays disappeared.

We’re extremely fortunate not to know precisely the kind of world we live in. One would have to live a long, long time, unquestionably longer than the world itself.

There is so much Everything that Nothing is hidden quite nicely.

In every tragedy, an element of comedy is preserved. Comedy is just tragedy reversed.

I’d have to be really quick to describe clouds – a split second’s enough for them to start being something else.

All the best have something in common, a regard for reality, an agreement to its primacy over the imagination.

Without action and fruit, all the theology in the world has little meaning.

Clarity is the ability to see the soul in action in the physical world.

We have spent the best part of the past century enthusiastically testing the world to utter destruction; not looking closely enough at the long-term impact our actions will have.

Forgiveness doesn’t always looks like things returning to normal. Words and actions change actions.

It is time we recognized that belief is not a private matter; it has never been merely private. In fact, beliefs are scarcely more private than actions are, for every belief is a fount of action in potential.

You cannot change anything in your life with intention alone, which can become a watered-down, occasional hope that you’ll get to tomorrow. Intention without action is useless.

Never confuse activity with action.

Start by thinking of the smallest possible action you could take; then, take it. Then, choose the next smallest action, and do that.